Slowly, this social distancing has created a mental health epidemic. The forced social constraints feels like depression, and has the same biological effects on all of us.  Many suffer, others rationalize, most just are stunned by the lack of motion in our lives.  Just a few months ago, people bragged about how they got up every morning and hustled and worked towards their dreams and goals.  I have been struggling with making a living for the last decade and this Covid-19 pandemic lock down feels a lot like life for me for the last 10 years.

My life became much smaller in my 30’s as my wife and I raised our family and focused on creating an environment for our children to grow up and flourish in.  It was only after my life was paused after Super storm Sandy, that I attempted to reconnect with old friends and family.  My old stoner friends wanted the old party animal, and the new Gary was not as much fun.  It was years before most of them made the change to family men and by that time, my old group of friends from college were not interested in me anymore.  They chose to socially distance themselves from me. 

In the era of Facebook, I used the social platform to reconnect with friends, old and new.  The first year was great.  Many of us reconnected and talked about the old times.  I hit a road block when I suggested that we get together to allow our families the chance to get to know each other.  At first the reactions where very positive.  But as plans came close to happening, the same thing kept occurring, last minute cancellations and a distancing.  It was like my idea of being friends was insulting to them somehow and that attempt to be friends was somehow off-putting.  The discourse that followed tended to be belittling and insulting.  The funny thing is that I never knew what I did wrong!

Now the world lives the life that was forced on me ten years ago.  I listen to constant messaging that we are in all in this together - what complete garbage! No one cares anymore, people give masks and gear to doctors and first responders so they can post positive messages on social media.  The fact is that the government has failed at every turn to do something to mitigate this pandemic.  Greedy pharmaceutical companies have been lining their pockets by making the American people addicted to their products.   Now these important industries are being asked to forgo profits and help.  That is not how the American system is designed and in the age of Trump, efficiency is gone.  So American pharmaceutical companies flounder around, giving approximations of when a vaccine can be developed.  At the same time, both the Chinese and the Germans are doing trials already, free from the bureaucracy, they move based on the threat. 

Now the world has moved and it is somewhere different.  The world keeps us sheltered in place, cutting my family off from the lives they had before the crisis.  The pain that I have been keeping to myself is now on the face of my two boys.  The distance from the things that make life “LIFE” have been removed and the house is now a prison, albeit a nice prison, a place to keep the virus at bay.  And I moved, and I focused on outside, my garden, the food I can produce, and the things I can do that can protect my family.  I have moved from social distancing depression to dogged determination, I will grow my way out of this situation.  And in the end, we will celebrate the harvest and glory of life in it impetuous nature.  Join me… Hope is never a bad thing.